Granite
by Bardicsidhe
Summary: I don't do character pieces often, but this one wrote itself. The first thing you'll see is the poem by Gary Snyder that inspired it, and then the story. Do read the poem - it's worth it.


**_Riprap - 1959  
__Gary Snyder_**  
  
_Lay down these words  
Before your mind like rocks.  
placed solid, by hands  
In choice of place, set  
Before the body of the mind  
in space and time:  
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall  
riprap of things:  
Cobble of milky way  
straying planets,  
These poems, people,  
lost poems with  
Dragging saddles—  
and rocky sure-foot trails.  
The worlds like an endless  
four-dimensional  
Game of Go.  
Ands and pebbles  
In the thin loam, each rock a word  
a creek-washed stone  
Granite: ingrained  
with torment of fire and weight  
Crystal and sediment linked hot  
all change, in thoughts,  
As well as things._

**Granite**

**Used for Reference: **Thru NoA Arc American Dub, Volumes 1-4 condensed manga.

**Summary:** For inspiration, I flipped open a random poem in the nearest anthology and copied it down and then borrowed a line to write from. The line changed several times during the course of this being written, but it's still there. Yes, another character piece. I can't help it…I've been encouraged. Consider it as my research for current ongoing _non-_character piecefictions.

**Disclaimer:** The characters and places of Yu-Gi-Oh! are not my property, and all of this fiction (as are all the others) is just pure fantasy. None of this really happened. Gary Snyder's poem _"Riprap"_ is also not my property, but it is very beautiful.

**Rated: PG for Language**

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Thick fingers turned over the next page in Hiroto Honda's geology book. He crouched on his stool behind the black lab table and shifted uncomfortably and scowled at the flytype under a cross-section of granite. While this class wasn't _so _boring – try Geometry, now _that _was boring! – it still wasn't what he wanted to be doing on a late spring afternoon. Thank God, there was only this class period left before P.E. – which he honestly didn't mind – and then he could go _home_. Hell, he wanted to go home right now.

So, what did Mr. Takashani have to say about igneous granite? Huffing an impatient sigh, Honda dropped his chin into his hand and let the words blur in and out. Then, the caption under the photo of ugly gray-white rock caught his attention.

_Granite forms from sandstone under incredible pressure, when crystal and sediments become heated through the weight of the earth._

That reminded him of something. Jonouchi was at the lab stool next to him, growling under his breath whenever Kaiba answered a question correctly – which was often. He didn't pay any attention to Honda as the brunette unhooked the heels of his shoes from the second rung of his stool and sat a little straighter. They were, of course, one of the three tables at the back of the classroom, and nobody took notice as a pair of dark eyes scanned the back of their head.

Honda settled on the unusual tri-point silhouette of Yugi Mutou. That kid had started out with lots of potential, and he'd grown up a lot over the past few years. Honda was proud of him, actually, in a weird 'like hell I'm admitting that' kind of way. He'd gone from being a scared little introvert to a confident picture of control. Now, Yugi didn't have to prove anything. He'd lived through enough terrible shit that he _deserved _respect, and he exuded strength in a quiet way. Under pressure and torment of fire and weight. All right, so Yugi Mutou was granite. Okay, maybe this tri-colored granite, since he was flashier than most.

Hey, this is kind of fun, Honda thought, and much more entertaining than sitting on his ass squinting at the pictures and trying to ignore the occasional impotent threats Jonouchi shot in Kaiba's direction. Under his breath, of course. So, hmm…who was next?

He thumbed through the pages, searching for descriptions of different kinds of minerals. How about gold? Who was that? It was generic enough, surely there had to be _someone_. How about Anzu? She had a heart of gold. No, hell no. That was too easy. Someone with a lot of flash. Someone who shone out like a star…

_…One of the most malleable metals…_

…but was really soft underneath and easy to manipulate…

_...An excellent conductor of electricity. One of the best, if not the best._

…and also had a nasty temper.

Oh. Well, shit. Jonouchi, of course.

As if to underline the statement, Jonouchi shook his head of touseled blonde (gold?) hair at Kaiba's latest genius answer and dug his nails into the tabletop. Honda nudged him. "Goddammit, man, if he pisses you off that much, then answer a question," He whispered furtively, and went back to thumbing through his geology book before Jou could throw him a startled look.

A few pages after Granite was a discussion of marble as a compressed form of limestone. The beautiful piece of white, grey-veined stone was nubbly on one end from being broken rather than cut.

_This stone is a favorite among candymakers because of its ability to absorb and transmit heat and stay cold, providing an excellent surface for tempering chocolate._

Cold? Who was cold? Cold and so beautiful that they could be a statue. Mai? No, Mai wasn't nearly that cold. Someone that people didn't touch much.

His eyes flickered over the almost translucent white hair of Ryou Bakura. Danger had not been kind to the delicate younger boy. He and his Yami had been locked in a game of manipulation that nearly cost poor Ryou his life. But he'd overcome it. And as a result, he kept a stoic face to everything, saying little, laughing less. His will was steel, but under the right circumstances…

_Marble is formed when limestone, a generally soft and easily wearing stone made of crushed fossilized sea creatures, is placed under extreme heat and pressure for many years. It is also notoriously weak in areas where other mineral veins are present in the stone and will often crack along these fissures._

…someone could find Bakura's cracks and make him crumble. There was no doubt about it. Ryou Bakura was marble.

On and on down the list. There was Anzu Mazaki, with the delicate crystal form, rosy hues and supposed supernatural qualities of amethyst (Not to mention the sharp cutting edges…). Mai, he decided, was an opal. Rare and difficult to mine, with many faults inside and that was what made it beautiful. Taken care of, it could be beautiful for a long time, but even handled with gentleness, it was still high-maintenance. Or a diamond. Hard and sharp, almost impossible to cut and beautiful in a ruthless kind of way.

God knew Seto Kaiba was obsidian. Opaque through and through, very handsome and visually striking. Dark. Very, very dark. Whatever Kaiba's motives were, they generally didn't come clear unless he had a second motive for giving them away. Along break lines, obsidian could be as sharp as broken glass, because it _was _almost glass. Refined silica from a volcanic eruption that had cooled slowly and over time.

Honda wondered privately if Kaiba could crack as easily as obsidian.

After deciding deliciously that Shizuka (who was not in his class) was jade, beautiful, classic, delicate, and a powerful symbol of eroticism and virility in Asian culture, Honda turned his gaze to the few people whom he hadn't labeled. There remained himself, of course, and Ryuuji Otogi.

_Iron Pyrite, also known as "Fools' Gold."_

His fingers paused underneath the image of white-yellow glittering stones embedded on a rock of rough green crystals. Fools' Gold. That was Otogi entirely! Honda's eyes narrowed with a superior smirk as he settled on the dark ponytailed profile of the kid a table up and across the righthand aisle from his row. He was examining his fingernails with boredom, and as Honda watched, the other boy waited until he thought nobody was looking before bending over to dig grit from underneath his nails. He was all about show, with nothing underneath. Not like Jonouchi, who wore his emotions on his sleeve, or Mai, who made no bones about her self-serving attitude. Otogi could pretend to be your best friend.

_Until it looks like a good time to rip your heart out._

But that wasn't entirely true. Ryuuji Otogi had a lot of faults. A lot of good reasons for being the kind of person he was. The faults made him dangerous and unsteady and unattainable…and yet still desirable and even more beautiful. Well, as beautiful as a jackhole son-of-a-bitch could possibly be. Maybe in the right setting, he could be…

An emerald? Otogi had very green eyes, after all. Emeralds were expensive and hidden deep in the earth, and rarely lasted very long because of the fissures and flaws inside the gem. But it was hard to see those flaws until the façade actually _broke_…

Honda supposed, shedding uncomfortable thoughts with a shake of his head, that it was all up to who was doing the looking.

He dug through the book with zeal now, and his teacher would have been astonished to know that he was actually _learning _something while he searched. He had a mission. There was one person whose stone he _didn't _know.

What kind of stone was Hiroto Honda?

_-owari-_


End file.
